


Après le Déluge

by Donna_Immaculata, ElDiablito_SF



Series: The Fabulous Adventures in Immortality of the Vampire Aramis and the Man Who Named the Mountain, Volume III [2]
Category: DUMAS Alexandre - Works, Les Trois Mousquetaires | The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas, d'Artagnan Romances (Three Musketeers Series) - All Media Types
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-01
Updated: 2015-10-08
Packaged: 2018-04-24 08:00:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 17,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4911646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Donna_Immaculata/pseuds/Donna_Immaculata, https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElDiablito_SF/pseuds/ElDiablito_SF
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Where do we go from here?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Deiseach](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Deiseach).



> We'd like to dedicate this work to Deiseach for everything that she's done for us and also for reasons that will become more evident in Chapter 2.

**Italy, 1629**

_A daimon sweeps the lands on black wings. Where his shadow falls, life withers and dies. Where his breath turns, it sucks the air out of human lungs and fills them with blood. Black Death skulks on the slopes of volcanoes, stalks proudly across green plains and rolling hills, lurks in the shade of olive groves, and thunders across rivers and streams on his black horse._

_A great weeping sweeps the lands. Men, women and children crouch down on their knees in fervent prayers, medallions of St. Antonius held aloft in spasming hands. They watch their husbands and wives, their sons and daughters twitch in agony, their bodies black with boils, their breath rattling with blood that they choke out with their final breath._

_A tall figure travels across the lands. Nobody knows its face, for everyone who saw it, saw his own sentence of death. A young woman, thin and pale and dressed in a linen dress, say some. The Wandering Jew, say others, with a hooked nose and red eyes. A cavalier whose black eyes burn purulent holes into living flesh. A lady with teeth of iron, from whose dress droplets of plague drip, drip, drip onto dusty roads. A priest who blesses with the devil’s sign._

_Death travels in his wake. It trails in the shadow of his spread cloak and erupts at the sound of his horse’s hooves. Those who have heard the clip-clop, clip-clop, clip-clop at night, like the heartbeat of a dying man, have heard the drumroll of their doom. People burn herbs and incense in their houses until their eyes water and their lungs fill with smoke, and they play music, all day long, to drown out the gruesome herald’s voice that follows them into their dreams._

_Miasmatic vapours clog the air. They soak hair and clothes, cling damply to skin and make wounds fester. They waft through the fortified hill towns of Umbria and the patrician palaces of Mantua. They drift through the doors of dusty terracotta farmsteads of Emilia Romagna and through the densely-packed cliff houses of Ligurian fishermen. They corrode the mosaics in the guilds of Florence. Bells toll in every city and township until their hearts of bronze break and silence falls forever. Forever._

I reached Padua in October 1629, shortly after the black death had reached Milan. In spite of the city’s quarantine law, designed to keep out German soldiers who had brought the plague from the Holy Roman Empire, the miasmic winds had found their way inside Milan’s walls and were strangling its population. Pestilence smouldered around Padua, but, as if by miracle, its fumes did not penetrate through its walls. It was as if a sacred circle had been drawn around the city, protecting it from the fate that it had suffered merely thirty years ago, when its pesthouses and graveyards had filled with the bursting bodies of the sick and the dead.

I had been admitted through the city gates without much difficulty, for I had pretended to be Italian myself, hailing from the Aosta Valley (to explain my French-tinged accent). It also helped that I smiled at the guard with all my teeth, and that he saw the reflection of his own skull in the black mirror of my eyes.

For two years, I immersed myself into the studies of Canon Law at the _Universitas Iuristarum_. I poured over immutable divine law and natural law, upon which ecclesiastical laws were based. Promulgated by the Supreme Pontiff, they became universal positives: legal principles and foundations of the Church, whose golden ladder I intended to scale. I studied the writings of Robert Bellarmine. It amused me to think how right he was in defending the belief that the Sun did indeed move – and how shocked he would be to discover that it was because a semi-nude Titan rode across the skies in his chariot of fire.

I was entering my third year when the letters began to arrive: epistolary and calligraphic masterpieces, which filled my heart with a sweet longing and a mildness that I had not felt in a long time. I took my leave from my alma mater and from the pater who had been my tutor during my sojourn in Padua. His parting gift sustained me for the duration of my journey to Parma, where I embarked on the studies of theology _de Deo_ and _de iure et iustitia_ , and whence I wrote a long letter back: _To my dear friend at Bragelonne_.

__***_ _

_November 15, 1633_  
_To: l’abbé René d’Herblay in Parma_  
_Alma Universitas Studiorum Parmensis_  
_Facultas theologiae_  
_From: le comte de La Fère, Château Bragelonne, Blois_

__My dear friend,_ _

__Forgive me my silence of late. It isn’t that you aren’t in my thoughts, it is that I know how little you care for the bucolic charms of botany and horticulture. However, often is the time that I may look upon the soft petals of a tulip and its trembling stamen and think of your eyelids when they are closed. The tulips are currently out of season. I hope you’re well. I - ~~I hope you don’t hate me.~~ I hope you’re happy._ _

__I did not wish to bore you with tales of my country life, but about a month ago something happened that indeed has compelled me to share the story with you. Not in your capacity as my confessor, although I do not need to point out to you that what I’m about to tell you is _sub rosa_._ _

__I do not recall if I had written to you that I had remained in touch with our captain of yore. If I’m to be entirely honest, his treatment of me was always more of a forbearing friend and father than my commanding officer. To this day, I wonder how Treville did not roundly dismiss me from service for all my dissipation. Did you bedevil him, chertyonok mine? Regardless, I felt I owed him a debt of gratitude, which was why I had consented to carry out a mission for him in the South, even though, as you know, I shun politics these days. (Again, I will not bore you with the details, although I suspect you would more gladly hear of them than my talk of tulips or even the Buddha’s Middle Way.)_ _

__The night was late and I had found myself in a village called Roche-L’Abeille. You’ll be pleased to hear that I sought refuge at the local parish, although I confess it was from no thoughts of piety but rather the fact that it looked to me to be the only option that might provide a veritable bed. With bedding. I had not been mistaken, the parish priest being a kindly and trusting soul had left me in charge of his bed and dinner, having been called away to the side of a dying man. I had not touched his wine, for as you know I had lost the taste for it since last we were in Paris, but I had taken advantage of his hospitality and helped myself to his repast, quickly retiring for bed. I had intended to be up before dawn to continue on my way._ _

__Imagine my annoyance when, just as I was about to allow Morpheus to carry me away, I heard a rapping on the vicarage door and a youthful head poked itself in to ask for Christian hospitality. How shall I describe to you what happened next? I can scarcely believe myself that I had lived through it. Do you believe in Fate, my friend? Perhaps you do, now, I do not know. I can hardly imagine what you must think._ _

__The young man who had asked for refuge seemed polite and well-bred enough, so I saw no harm in letting him and his lackey in. The hour was so late, I would be up and off myself soon enough. I told him to help himself to what was left of dinner. I may have grumbled more, I do not recall. I was tired for I had ridden all day and had no patience for the giggles of youth that reached my ears from beyond the partition._ _

__Again, I began to drift off, when the bed shifted and another body slipped under the covers. Aramis. It was ~~horrifying~~ very dark in that room. I felt an arm encircle me and soft lips alighted on the back of my neck. I was not in the mood, as you can imagine, so I removed the arm and was about to make a rather blunt remark when my young visitor spoke again._ _

__“Do not turn away a fallen woman in need of counsel, mon père,” she had said, for it was indeed a she. Even in the darkness now, I could see the mounds of her breasts rising defiantly underneath the cambric of her chemise. And then, she made the mistake of reaching for my cock with her intrepid hand._ _

__I grabbed her wrist and pinned her to the bed. “Who sent you?” I demanded, simultaneously trying to restrain this would-be assassin and leave as much room between us as was possible. It wasn’t particularly possible. I felt her palpitate in my grasp and for a moment she seemed frightened. “Was it she? Was it Eris?” I demanded, wrapping my free hand around the brazen assailant’s neck. “Tell my sister my meat is off the menu!” I hissed and squeezed my hand tighter around her neck._ _

__A high pitched squeal pierced my eardrums and then… And then. Water. Everywhere. All over me, all over the room, all over my face, in my mouth. I swallowed it in panic. (To this day I am wondering what the consequences are of having some of her inside me. To her health, I mean. Has this ever happened to you?) The woman was gone from beneath me and I shot out of bed (which was soaked) and fell trembling into a nearby armchair (also suspiciously damp)._ _

__At the sound of our mutual alarm, the door flung open, revealing two figures brandishing oil lamps. One of them was Grimaud, who looked as bewildered as I felt. The other, oh Aramis, you will surely laugh, was another woman disguised as a man. “What have you done to my mistress?” she demanded and I had somehow, even in my terror, recognized her face and her voice._ _

__It had been Kitty. The same Kitty whom our young Gascon had seduced in his deluded chase after baronesses and laundresses alike. The same Kitty whom you had sent to Tours, to serve your crafty nymph._ _

__“Your _mistress_ ,” I choked, on words and water that was still evidently down my throat. (No, but really, has this ever happened to you before? Is this something that she _does_? There was so much wetness!) “You mean, your mistress… the… uh. Marie Michon?”_ _

__“Monsieur!” Kitty had lifted the flame higher, illuminating my face and also gasped in recognition. Behind her, Grimaud made a sign asking if he should kill her. I shook my head desperately, my thoughts still scattered like all the wetness that surrounded me._ _

__All of a sudden, I felt moisture being sucked out of the air, and in the middle of the bed, the woman had apparated where before there were only sodden sheets. Strangely, I still felt wet all over, even though the bedding looked dry._ _

__“It’s you!” she exclaimed, as if somehow I was the long lost friend she had been seeking half her nymphette life. “You’re he! You’re Athos!”_ _

__“And you’re…” I stopped, not truly knowing how to address her._ _

__“The Rohan nymph, surely.” She smiled at me, her teeth flashing almost as brightly as yours in the dim light. My gods, Aramis, she was… she is… so beautiful. I understood immediately how you had - Well… I don’t have to tell you how beautiful she is._ _

__“Madame, forgive me. I did not know it was you,” I inclined my head like a proper penitent, for that was not how I would have wished to make a first impression._ _

__“No need to apologize. You were defending your life.” She beamed at me and looked towards the door where Kitty and Grimaud both still stood agape. “Aramis, he too tried to eat me when we first met,” she mentioned, almost as an afterthought. (You had never told me that!) “Kitty, you may go,” she dismissed her co-conspirator with a regal yet delicate movement of the hand. I nodded to Grimaud to follow suit before taking the lamp from him. He departed, though not before signing to me not to let her touch my cock. He’s impertinent, as you well know, but he means well (and in this case, he was not wrong, albeit a little bit late)._ _

__I placed the lamp by the bedside and sat back down in the armchair. I admit, I was trying to place myself physically as far away from her as possible. Then, as if remembering my manners, I rose quickly to my feet._ _

__“Duchess…”_ _

__“Marie,” she smiled graciously again and indicated the arm chair. “Surely, we have come too far to use our assumed titles in private, Monsieur. In fact, I believe you have a little piece of me inside you still.” I sincerely hoped it wasn’t a lung or a kidney or something else that she required to live._ _

__“Forgive me, Madame,” I repeated, not about to call her by her given name. “This is… unexpected. And, indeed, I must be off as soon as...” I looked down at my clothes. “As soon as I am dry.”_ _

__“Why, Monsieur Athos, how rude! After everything I’ve heard about you, after everything I’ve done for you and Aramis? You are going to just leave?”_ _

__“Madame, it is perhaps _because_ of everything you’ve done for Aramis that I must go.”_ _

__“Not fair,” she pouted. She appeared to be a human woman in her thirties, but beneath the practiced courtliness was still a wily, impish nymphette, just begging to come out._ _

__“Besides, Madame. It appears you had a fancy for a priest, and I am a poor substitute for one.”_ _

__She laughed at that. “I’ve always had a fancy for a priest, you know.” Her eyes shone like topazes even in the dimly lit room. Aramis, she was like a breath of fresh air. And I was afraid to spend another minute in that room with her._ _

__“I know,” I said, feeling my throat grow parched, despite all the aforementioned wetness._ _

__“You don’t trust me. I understand.” She had balled herself up on the bed, her breasts now completely hidden from sight, but her bare feet looked strangely exposed and intimate resting on the rumpled sheets. “It’s because I’m a woman.”_ _

__“And my lover’s lover,” I added, seeing no reason for keeping up pretenses. (The indelicacy for which I do hope you forgive me.)_ _

__“Is he still your lover?” she asked, coyly. I had averted my eyes, not trusting myself to speak of you to her, and concentrated on gathering my cloak, boots, and hat. I had already located my sword (just in case)._ _

__“Is he still yours?” I parried. (Again, I feel that I must apologize to you for relaying everything exactly as it transpired, but I promised myself to keep no more secrets from you. You deserve better than that.)_ _

__She held my gaze for a few long moments and spoke at last. “Let me prove to you that I mean you no harm. Allow me to be your friend, and you shall see that not all women are demons and assassins.”_ _

__“Madame, it is goddesses, such as yourself, that I have grown to fear most,” I bowed to her as I spoke and then I had fastened my cloak and put my hat upon my head, ready to depart._ _

__“A word more, Monsieur, and then you’re free to make your escape,” she said with a small laugh that despite her mirth was not mockery._ _

__“I am at your service, Madame,” I said. “Such as it is. Within limitations, but you may command me.”_ _

__“I’m very well aware of your limitations.” She smiled again, but not in an unkind way. “And I’m a bit piqued that they apply to me whereas Aramis was free to ignore them.”_ _

__I swear to you, my dear friend, I blushed. I blushed to the roots of my hair. In fact, I think my hair may have blushed with me. I did not know what to do with myself, except to flee. Still, I was too much a gentleman not to hear her out._ _

__“Monsieur, when I get to Spain, I shall send you a gift. Something to remind you of our meeting. I’d like you to take good care of it and return it to me upon my successful homecoming to France. Do you promise to do so?”_ _

__“Madame, you have my word,” I gave her a short bow again. “If Madame requires an escort to the Spanish border…”_ _

__“Oh no,” she waved me off merrily. “Kitty and I are quite capable of getting to Spain ourselves. After all, I am not as defenseless as I seem.” She winked at me._ _

__“It isn’t you I’m worried about, Madame. It is the souls of clergy between Roche-L’Abeille and Madrid.”_ _

__She let out a loud peal of laughter, throwing her head back and spilling her golden hair all over the shoddy gobelin above the bed._ _

__“Oh, you are charming, count! Aramis never told me how charming you were!”_ _

__We exchanged a few more perfunctory pleasantries before I was able to finally back out of the room, while trailing the plumes of my hat in my wake in an ostentatious and courtly bow. Having skirted the grisette and gathered up Grimaud, I took to the saddle and rode away like a man possessed._ _

__Do you know if she had gotten to Spain safely? If she had, she had not had opportunity yet to send me this mysterious gift. A part of me still wishes I had escorted her. A part of me still trembles at the very thought of her. Your beautiful nymph. You had told me she was beautiful, but you had also spared me in her descriptions. She carries a loveliness with her of the first breath of spring. To know her is surely to love her. No wonder half of France lies heartbroken in her wake and Richelieu sharpens his talons to curtail her preternatural power. Loire may not be the most beautiful river in the world, but it has given birth to a magnificent daughter. What a fool I was not to understand it sooner!_ _

__Here ends my story of the adventure of Marie Michon. You have been in Italy for some time now where I recall the rivers (if not their nymphs) are equally beautiful. Italy itself is breathtaking, isn’t it, my friend? I feel that you two would compliment each other handsomely, however, a selfish part of me also wishes you would return. Surely there are monasteries in France where you could successfully cloister yourself away from whatever it is you’re running from. And books, lots of books._ _

__I heard from Porthos the other day. He invites me to go hunting with him at one of his châteaux. Perhaps I shall. Although I believe the Buddha would probably frown upon it. Hard be it for me to believe that a pheasant is really a “sentient being.” I suppose if we kill it to eat it, that would be “right intent?” I wish you could be there with us._ _

__Be well, my friend. _Non dimenticarmi.__ _

__With my eternal regard,_ _

__Athos_ _

__***_ _

_December 31, 1633_  
_To: Padre Renatus d’Herblay in Parma_  
_Alma Universitas Studiorum Parmensis_  
_Facultas theologiae_  
_From: Marie Michon, seamstress, Madrid_

__My beloved cousin-german,_ _

__As the dearly departed Gregory XIII wants it, the old year dies tonight. There is something melancholy about the night when the door between the old year and the new opens, don’t you think? I have left the door of my cabinet ajar as I’m writing these lines, and from the corner of my eye I see darkness loom on the other side. The shadows by the wall are its tendrils, and the breeze that makes my candle dance and sets my spine a-shiver is its breath. Do you ever _see_ the beauty of darkness, my beautiful demon? But perhaps its calm, the calm of the deepest marine abyss, does not appeal to you. To you, Hypnos is nothing but Thanatos’ brother, you don’t know of the peace he brings. Your nature is that of devouring fire. You are Phosphorus, or, to give you your Latin name, Lucifer – the venereal star whose brilliancy cuts through darkness like the Archangel’s flaming sword._ _

Have you ever burned _him_?

__Do not narrow your eyes in disgust, Aramis. It is not my intention to rub salt in the wound. You never told me what happened, but I have known you for many decades, _Renatus_ , and I have gathered that _something_ had estranged you from your god once again. How long has it been since you disappeared from my life (and his?) without a word? I’m not reproaching you, Cousin, for you know your own affairs best. But please be assured that you _are_ loved._ _

__No, don’t roll your eyes in exasperation. Don’t call me a sentimental fool, not even in your thoughts, for you know that I am anything but. That does not mean that I don’t recognise romance when I see it. And I know that all don’t have to meet the same end as Patroclus and Achilles._ _

__The beautiful Achilles. _He_ knew him, did he not? Ah, to have been there and watched him wrestling with Achilles! I believe it would have been a pleasure worthy of the gods themselves (who, let’s face it, did exactly that: they watched those two demigods strain against each other as Helios bathed them in golden light)._ _

__I have met your god, my love. But you know that already, do you not? He must have written to you, for he is honest and honourable and would not keep something like that from you. Did he tell you all that had transpired? Did he tell you how I had donned the costume of a cavalier to escape the cardinal’s clutches? I wore your shirt under my doublet, René, even though it is much too large for me. Now and forever, I cherish the memories of the morning you bestowed it on me._ _

__Did he tell you how I had snuck upon him and almost triggered Hera’s curse – unwittingly, I assure you – in my attempt to get my hands on a priest at last? For you left me, thus depriving me of the pleasure of debauching a man who had taken the vow of chastity. (Did you do that, René? Did you stand up, in front of your ecclesiastical brethren, and did your mouth speak those words? I would have loved to see that as well – though perhaps not as much as I would have loved to see your lover wrestle with Achilles. In the nude.)_ _

__Alas, I did not get to see him in the nude, for he defended himself so vigorously that he forced me to turn to water and seafoam in his hands. I believe he swallowed a bit of me. It was not the union I was hoping for, but it was certainly memorable. There is a part of me living inside him now._ _

__How long does it take for the curse to take effect? When it happened on Rhodes, it was a matter of a few days, was it not? I have now waited several months to hear if anything had happened to him, but my sources tell me that he is well and happy leading the life of a seignour on the shores of the Loire._ _

__All this fills me with confidence that the curse comes with a loophole. For one, this is how the Old Gods operate: they build layers upon layers of words that twist and turn snakelike, and, like the King of Serpents guarding his treasures, guard the meaning hidden within their coils. Athos had touched me that night; his hands had been on my neck, and his body had pressed up against mine. I had burst and flooded all over him, drenching him from head to foot. Yet he is alive. He is happy. Neither the touch of my skin nor the gush of my essence had destroyed him._ _

__Do you know the exact words of the curse? I imagine it to be Delphic in nature, and only if one were to comprehend it fully, one would possibly be able to break it. Or at least work around it._ _

__I have met your god, my love, and I must admit I am sorely tempted to commit apostasy. To forsake my gods of water and air and to worship one of flesh and blood. You pray at the altar of power and ambition; meanwhile, your corporeal idol is left bereft of the devotion that is his due._ _

__Go back to France, Aramis. Whatever it was that had driven you apart – I assure you all will be forgot once you lay your eyes on him again._ _

__I kiss you, as ever, most tenderly,_ _

__Aglaé Michon_ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Italian Plague of 1629–31 was a genuine historical event. German soldiers were to blame.


	2. Chapter 2

**Church of San Fedele, Milan, March 1634**

Standing beneath the Chair of Verity, I looked up at the fine sculptures that adorned it and raised my eyes to the Christogram: IHS, _Iesum Habemus Socium_. As a member of the Society of Jesus, I was fortunate enough to have Him travel in my entourage as I made my way back to France. I had suggested to my tutor at the University of Parma that he should entrust me with conveying three fingers of San Fedele’s hand to Paris. “If you remember, Father,” I had told him by way of explanation, “the question of saints and their fingers had been treated upon in my thesis, which was didactic _and_ dogmatic.” I had smiled at him. A few minutes later, I had found myself in possession of a letter that would serve as my passport for weeks to come.

Saint Fidelis of Como. Legend had it that he had been a member of the Theban Legion. The thought of all those men, Roman soldiers who had been martyred for converting to Christianity, titillated me. I wondered what Athos would make of that story. I wondered if the heathen smirk would curl one corner of his mouth as he took a sip of wine and launched into a retelling of the story the way history, not legend, wanted it. For one, his version would contain more references to Roman cocks. (But no. In his new-found sobriety, Athos did no longer touch wine.) (Did he still touch cock? Whose? _Whose_?)

I smiled and sliced the air above my head with the sign of the cross. The thought of Athos no longer resulted in men dying. After I had received his latest letter last winter, two or three worthy Jesuit fathers had departed dearly, struck down by a sudden attack of miasmic fever. Marie’s letter had filled me with a rage so icy that for a short time I’d feared for the future of my alma mater, as several tutors were laid up with consumption. It appeared that the winter sun was potent enough in this part of this world to infuse my shadow with darkness that settled like dust in human lungs and made their blood wither in their veins. Fortunately, it hadn’t lasted long, for my ire drained and the ecclesiastics recovered.

My own blood calmed as I travelled north with my small entourage, the casket with the holy relics stored safely among my luggage. I feared not the tendrils of war that presently ravaged the Holy Roman Empire, which meandered southward between Helvetian mountains, all the way to Italy and towards France. The tidings of war circled around us in the cawing of crows, who fluttered fat and lazy, gorged to bursting on carrion. Their hoarse voices sang of _wiedergängers_ , of living dead who, wrapped in the remnants of once-proud uniforms, skulked on the fringes of human settlements like wolves who had been severed from their pack. Dragging themselves forward with their last breath, they were scattering across the lands like vermin. Lunatics, driven by hunger and fear, they had turned into feral beasts who marauded through hamlets and villages, robbed gold from church altars, and, once they had exhausted divine treasures, turned to robbing human dwellings. They introduced the Swedish Drink to Helvetic tribes, to whom this specialty was not at all palatable, for it meant that their mouths would be wedged open with a piece of wood and manure water would be poured down their gullets by the bucket, until their bellies burst under pressure.

I wondered what Athos would make of such conduct; of those creatures, half-man, half-beast, torturing commoners. One day, dusk was already falling, when two such wretches staggered into my path. Without a groan, without a growl, they crawled out of the woods, dragging their feet through the sludge of snow and mud. One of them was elderly, his hair almost entirely grey, his face a woodcut of agony. It appeared that that man had frozen to death and that his eyes were the only thing living in that chiaroscuro visage. That human spectre was shrouded in emerald-green parament stolen from a church, which made him look like a giant bottle fly. The other one, younger and apparently stronger, resembled a fresh corpse. Both reached out their hands in wordless, beggarly plea. Their lips were silent, but their eyes howled with a ghastly voice.

I hesitated, my hand on the hilt of my sword. Like myself, they had been soldiers. Like myself, they had died a gruesome death, yet they still walked the earth. Fate had been merciful to me. I owed it to the cross around my neck and my Jesuit vestments to be so as well.

I pushed my sword back into the scabbard and showed them mercy.

Linden trees were bursting into bloom when I reached Paris. Above my head, a skein of geese flew north, and suddenly, the world tilted and swayed around me. I clung to the pommel of my saddle, blinking against the headrush that threatened to unseat me. A gust of wind, a cloud rushing across the face of the sun and casting a shadow over me. My other hand fumbled for the cross in my vest and I wrapped my fingers around it hard enough to feel blood well up against the diamonds. Oh no, no, _no_! Not those _damn_ pagan gods again! I was sick of their persistent refusal to die and depart from this world, which did not belong to them any longer.

The cloud shifted, the sun showed its face again, and the delusion drained from my head and my heart. All was well, it was still spring, the gods had not meddled, for once. Bells tolled around the city, for it was the midday hour. The churches of Paris praised the One God with one voice, who was more powerful here than in any other city in Christendom, save perhaps Rome. I would devote my life to strengthening His power. I would become the rock upon which His Church would stand, firm and eternal: a bastion against the pagan gods of yore who had ruined my happiness, and who took as much pleasure in cruelty and torture as the marauders spawned by the armies of the Holy Roman Empire.

***

**Blois, France, July 1634**

Dear audience, I know what you are thinking. You are asking yourself right now about the illegitimate son, the one who bore my dead parrot’s name. Well, what can I tell you? With time, if you show forbearance, it will become clear why Alex had done what he had done and wrote what he had written. But in the meantime, rest assured that had I actually managed to make a son out of wedlock with Marie de Rohan, I would have given him a worthy name, a manly name, a warrior’s name. Something like Maximillian, or Alexander, or Vladimir.

But, indeed, as Fate and curse would have it, Marie and I did not spawn progeny in the traditional sense.

Back in Bragelonne, I sat at my writing desk, lost in thought. I had taken to translating Shakespeare’s _Hamlet_ into French. At first, I had done it simply for my own pleasure and because there was no other translation available. But the more I thought about it, the more the ending struck me as overly merciful. I had been an immortal, but one who had walked through the gates of Elysium more than once. I still remembered the sweet oblivion that those gates brought. The peaceful calm of my repose in the realm of Hades. No, death was too good for Hamlet. He should have been forced to live with what he had done. To Ophelia, to everyone.

As I contemplated the next strophe, a powerful gust of wind beat at my window, finally forcing it wide open and scattering all my papers to the floor. I sighed, and rather than pick them up, I turned around to see which of the Anemoi I would find standing behind me.

I had not been mistaken: it had been the West Wind.

“Zephyrus,” I greeted him with a frown.

“Athos,” he responded with suspicion and cast a quick look about the room. “Where is your revenant?” His wings had been white, like his mother Eos’, and folded neatly behind his back. There was nothing inherently malevolent about this visitor. Still, the winds always made me uneasy. Especially _this_ one.

“Not here,” I evaded.

“And my cousin-germain, Porthos?”

“At one of his estates, happily married to a rich widow,” I replied courteously, not wishing him to make a small tornado inside my rooms.

“That’s like him,” the West Wind snickered.

“You should visit him there,” I suggested with the sweetness worthy of Aramis. “And to what do I owe this visit? Is Olympus intact?”

“Intact,” he inclined his head. “I am not sent from on high, but from down below. A gift for you!” He pointed towards the window and I followed his gaze. Upon a soft breeze, a bird had flown into the room and landed on my newly cleared writing desk. It was a magnificent Grey African parrot.

“Well, hello there, avian friend,” I said, extending my arm. The little fellow jumped into my palm and craned his head as he studied me.

“I love Aramis!” the bird suddenly declared. My jaw dropped and I gaped at Zephyrus for an explanation.

“Ah yes, a message for you,” Porthos’ first cousin handed me a cleverly folded folio and I smiled at the dawning realization of who had sent me the parrot. “I can wait if you wish to compose a reply.”

 _My dear count_ , Marie wrote, _Our mutual Wallachian friend told me you were once fond of parrots. I had taken the liberty of teaching this one a few choice phrases myself. His name is Raoul the Second. Think of me fondly and remember your promise. Your friend, Marie Michon_

I laughed upon finishing reading her note. “Hades’ balls!” the bird announced and I felt tears creep up out of my eye sockets from shaking with so much laughter. Oh, Marie, you wild force of nature. I had been so right to be so fiercely jealous of you.

I quickly scribbled my reply to her before handing it back to her Anemoi messenger.

 _Madame_ , I responded, _I am bereft of words. But in honor of Spain, which now gives you safe harbor, I shall call the parrot Segundo, and surrender him safely to you upon your return._

I did not sign it, for there was no need.

Zephyrus’ exit was as dramatic as his entrance, causing poor Segundo to jump to the top of my head and perch there like the king of the mountain he surely fancied himself to be. I untangled him from my hair and watched as he contemplated me from the perch of my index finger.

“All right, Segundo,” I said, “Lesson one. Ready?” The bird inclined his head and watched my lips. “Grilled Octopus!”

***

**Loudun, France, August 1634**

Outside my window, a huge pyre was being erected. Seated on the windowsill with a glass of wine in my hand, I watched workmen scurry around, putting a few finishing touches to the construction under the watchful eyes of the Jesuits. I had been summoned to Loudun to compile a report on Father Jean-Joseph Surin, the Jesuit who had taken it upon himself to exorcise one of the nuns and who had been possessed in her stead. Ever since the demon had passed from her into him, the Jesuit father had been harassed by evil spirits, hallucinations, seizures and paralyses, and found himself slowly losing his power of speech, all of which pushed him onto the path to self-slaughter. So far, he had survived, but if I knew anything about demons, it was that they knew how to bide their time.

For now, the demon would have to satisfy his craving with the soul of the parish priest who was about to be executed for sorcery, for maleficia, for summoning evil spirits and for causing demonic possessions of Ursuline nuns. Father Grandier was being pushed and tugged on the scaffold, staggering on distorted legs that had been broken again and again as the torture of brodequins had been inflicted upon him to extort a confession. I sat my wine glass aside and made some notes for my report in my folio. Father Grandier was still a young man, whose face had retained the vestiges of the good looks that had attracted the attention of girls and women in his parish. He had been given the promise to be hanged before being burned, for his Jesuit judges were nothing if not merciful. But, by popular demand of monks and townfolk alike who had flocked to the execution like carrion flies to rotting meat, the exorcist in charge had the pyre lit before the priest could be hanged. A cry tore from the condemned man’s throat as flames began to lick their way up towards his body while he was being burned alive. In the flames, I imagined I saw the reflection of a malformed visage, with red eyes and a mouth that breathed fire. I blinked and the vision was gone.

That wouldn’t do. I was getting infected by human fancies, for that was what they pictured a demonic face to look like: fire-spitting and inhuman.

No, the image in the flames had been a mere illusion. The demon of Loudun wore a different face. If the entire convent of Ursuline sisters had been willing to have congress with him, he was sure to come to them in a different guise. I was curious if he would ever be found, that crafty fiend who had plunged so many men and women into madness and despair; the demon Asmodis.

As the flames rose and thick smoke began to billow, enshrouding the still-screaming priest, I closed the window and drew the curtains. I picked up my notes and sat down at the desk to write a faithful account of the possession of Father Jean-Joseph Surin and the execution of Father Urbain Grandier. Once the letter was despatched to Paris, I would be granted ten days of leave, before I was due for my next appointment. Loudun was a good day’s ride from Blois. It had been five years since I’d last seen Athos, and I was curious how horticulture, sobriety and the influence of an eastern guru had changed my pagan idol. Had Ares let him go without a struggle?

Had _Eris_?

A sojourn in the country with my dear old friend beckoned.

***

**Blois, France, August 1634**

I sat in my room, legs crossed underneath me in the lotus position. The balcony was opened, letting in the heady breath of summer. Around the château, rows of lilies opened up and suffused the air with their soporific aroma. I had finally mastered the ability to descend into a meditative state regardless of time of day. For the first few years, I could only do it at night, when nature was quiet and mortals slept, but now, not even the sound of approaching horse hooves could move me from my place of silent contemplation.

The only thing that is unchanging is change. I submit to the will of dharma’s universal law. At this moment, there is nothing to do, and nothing to feel, only…

Grimaud standing right in front of me, tapping his foot with growing impatience. “Kyrios!”

“What is it, M. Grimaud?” I asked, slowly opening my eyes.

“It’s your flitterbat. He’s back.”

I looked at Grimaud for several long moments. I breathed in; I breathed out.

“Flitterbat, that’s… redundant,” I said. “All bats flitter.”

“Did you not understand me, Master?”

“I understood.” I closed my eyes again and I breathed in. Air going in energizes you; air going out relaxes you. I breathed out. “Aramis is here.” I smiled and rose to my feet. “I shall go welcome him.”

Grimaud’s hand was on my belt, reeling me in like a wayward toddler.

“Are you still capable of fucking him without falling in love? You could do this in the past. Remember Antinous?”

With reigned in irritation, I dislodged his fist from my belt. “Of course, I remember [Antinous](https://farm3.staticflickr.com/2794/4228312543_a7c0e85238_o.jpg)!” How could anyone ever forget Antinous? He was so young when he had given himself to me. The first roses of spring were on his cheeks and the secret bud between his thighs had been mine to pluck. The gods must have wept when they made him. I did not want him to grow old and die, not ever. And so I had given him to Hadrian and Hadrian had given him immortality. “Aramis is not Antinous.”

“You’re right, of course, Kyrios. Antinous was infinitely more fuckable.”

“Silence, gnat!” I snapped. A brief horror reflected in the Grigori’s eyes. “Aramis is my friend and you will not compare him to a passing catamite, even one as… even Antinous.” Grimaud rolled his eyes at me and pursed his lips. “You try my patience, Grigori.”

“Do you think, Kyrios, our last trip to Hellas was a pleasure cruise for me? Dragging his dribbling, penitent behind up Olympus? Baking Hera’s cakes while he bled into the batter? Do you know how difficult it is to even _find_ asphodel honey these days?”

“Do you wish to be relieved of your duties?” I smirked.

“No, I _wish_ ,” he said with exasperation, “that you would give that Slavic demon up, once and for all! I thought you were over him.”

“I am!” I quickly spat out and repeated it more quietly. “I am. But he’s one of us, Grimaud, and I don’t want to live an eternity with no one to talk to.”

“He’s _not_ one of us. How can you compare his demonic pretensions of dubious origin to your own divine provenance! And, besides, you have M. Porthos to talk to. He may be of mixed parentage, but he’s at least family.” At times, I wondered which one of us two was the bigger snob: myself or my familiar.

“It’s not the same,” I shook my head. It wasn’t the same. I wasn’t sure why. They were both my dearest friends and I cherished their company. But they were as different as night and day, at times quite literally. And it had been five years since I’d last seen Aramis. Five years, which flew by in a blink of an eye for me, and now that he was here, I realized I had missed him.

I descended the stairs, I am not ashamed to say, with a bounce in my step. When you haven’t seen a mortal in five years, there is always that uncertainty - how will they look; how will you find them; will the horror of their transformation be written all over your face? Everything changes, most of all people. I didn’t have to be afraid of that with Aramis, for like the statues of Antinous, his beauty was eternal.

But instead of finding my immortalized Adonis downstairs, I beheld the fat and self-satisfied physiognomy of… “Bazin! You still exist.”

“My master,” the homunculus bowed turgidly, “would like to know if the count would be inconvenienced if we were to visit unannounced.”

“Get the hell out of my sight,” I pushed past him. “Where is he?”

“In the garden, M. le comte.”

In the garden, under my windows, where he could hear perfectly well with his flittermouse ears everything that I had said to Grimaud. My heart gave a sympathetic jolt on his behalf. This wasn’t how I wanted our reunion to begin. Suddenly, the heady smell of the blossoming lilies was giving me a headache.

I followed his trail deeper into the garden, then past the floral beds, until at last I saw him in the shade of the chestnuts, leaning against one of the trees as he watched my approach. His face wore the mask of indifference, but then I smiled at him and his lips trembled. In another moment, he was smiling back at me.

“My dear count,” he greeted me, pushing off the tree trunk.

“My dear Aramis.” I pulled him into my embrace before he had the chance to change his mind or resist. His skin smelled of lavender and almond oil and his hair was as daintily curled as if he was still a young courtier and not a promising new light of the Jesuit Order. “You look well,” I told him.

His eyes lit up for a moment and his lids briefly hovered at half mast.

"As do you," he responded curtly.

"Surely, it isn't solely for the pleasure of my company that you've quit the verdant shores of Italy. What brings you back to France?"

“I have been offered a position in Noisy-le-Sec,” he replied sweetly. Noisy-le-Sec was just a stone’s throw from Paris, a few days' ride away from Blois. I did the calculations in my head and filed that information for the future. “I got your letter,” he added. And there, for just a few seconds, under the fine sheen of his mask of indifference, I saw a fire-breathing dragon.

I smiled and took his hand in mine, leading him back towards the château. “I sent you many letters, Aramis.”

“Your last one was most entertaining,” he pronounced, pressing his tongue against the sharp points of his fangs.

My last letter to him had been many months ago, I could scarcely recall what I had written. Just then, as if the gods seemed fit to jog my memory, Segundo had flown from the opened window, landed on my shoulder and pronounced with great flourish, "I love Aramis."

"Ah, my last letter," I suddenly recalled. Marie, in all her wetness.

"What the hell is that! The devil’s revenant parrot?"

Poor flittermouse. My parrots always did have terrible timing and worse word choice.

"Segundo, get lost," I said, shaking the bird off, and picking up Aramis' hand again. "I'm happy you're here, my friend. I do hope you’re planning on staying for some time."

***

He _did_ look well. Death had filled out the hollows of his cheek again and had erased the dark shadows under his eyes. I had never forgotten his face, I couldn’t. It was etched into my memory forever, and I was able to summon up the image at will. But I had forgotten just how breathtakingly beautiful he was when his eyes lit up with sincere joy and his teeth flashed when he laughed with heartfelt mirth. I still had the power to make him laugh, just as he still had the power to make me-

I closed my eyes momentarily, and Athos’ laughter faded. He stood by my side and took my hand in his, pressing it lightly. “I’m glad you’re here,” he said softly and my skin shivered under the layers of clothes. “I’ve missed you.”

“I’ve been busy,” I replied curtly, trying and failing not to breathe in the scent of his- of _him_. If I turned my head just so, my mouth could brush against his with no effort at all.

I stood very still, my hand in his and my loins burning with sudden and, admittedly, not entirely unexpected desire. I had braced myself for this. The night before I arrived in Bragelonne, I had spent in Blois, in diligent preparations of body and soul. I had washed my hair with egg yolk and cultivated my hands with almond paste and perfumed oils. I had slapped Bazin twice for clumsiness as he curled my hair and handled the curling iron badly. I had put on the dress of a cavalier, a hat with a beautiful scarlet plume, and I had hung my sword by my side.

Athos had taken in my appearance with eyes that didn’t turn to ebony. Sunlight rendered them the colour of fine Armagnac, and as I glanced at him from the side, I saw amber lights flicker in his calm gaze.

“Aren’t you going to offer me a drink?”

He stepped aside and invited me to enter his house with an expansive gesture of his arm. He never let go of my hand as we walked through the garden side by side. As I looked up the façade of the house, my heart quivered within my breast. The last time I had seen it was when I snuck out after that night… the night when Athos and I had been reunited. The night that had been the beginning of the end, for he was changed then, and I had been too unskilled to cope.

As a pupil of the Jesuits, I had been taught the secrets of exorcising demons, including demons of the soul and of the past. But Athos, this Athos, this beautiful, glorious halfgod, whose hair shone like metal in the sun and whose gait was proud and light, was not in need of a devouring fire to burn his demons and cauterise his wounds. I sensed a lightness in him that lifted him even more above mere mortals.

He called me his dear friend. That form of address, so inadequate for men who had been what we had been to each other, should have filled me with rage. But it was not ire that burned through me. It was the desire to prove myself worthy of his esteem – unfettered as it now was by carnal lust.

Grimaud served wine and water. I saw Athos reach for the latter – a natural, smooth motion that told me that his sobriety was genuine and true. The passion of former days had rendered him a force of nature. This new calm elevated him above nature and into realms of true divinity.

I sipped my wine and closed my eyes to conjure up the image of Athos above me as he fucked himself between my thighs that night on the ship. That beautiful hair, as it fell over his shoulders in tangled locks. His mouth, always so generous and hot against my flesh.

I opened my eyes and saw him look at me. He smiled, and I couldn’t help but smile back. “Do you sometimes think of the past?” I asked. “Do you remember?”

His smile didn’t fade, but it darkened, turned wistful. “I have millennia worth of memories,” he said softly and I felt my face close as my skin tautened into a mask. “But the memories of those last decades, they are,” his lashes fluttered, hiding the expression in his eyes from me, “they are still clear, Aramis.” He looked up at me and my heart swelled.

“The good ones and the bad ones?” I said.

He nodded. For a moment, we were silent, and then I cleared my throat and spoke in a voice that was much too formal to be my own. “I’m sorry I hurt you.” I laughed at the sound of those words, so inadequate were they. “I mean it,” I added quickly, lest he should think that I was mocking him.

Athos was shaking his head. “It wasn’t your fault, Aramis.” He sighed heavily and for a moment I saw the deep calm distorted by a shadow of the tortured man he used to be in his Parisian days. “It was the will of the gods.”

“The gods!” I burst out, suddenly furious. The wrath for which I had been bracing myself for days finally seared through me, almost comforting in its fiery intensity. “Damned be your gods! It is time for them to die! Let them descend to Hades, Elysium or Tartarus, I don’t care, as long as they stop interfering with my fate, with my life. I am sick of them, Athos. Aren’t you?”

He was looking at me calmly. “I am one of them, Aramis.”

“No, you’re not.” I waved my hand impatiently and drank more wine. “You have lived in the world, Athos. You have grown. You have changed. They haven’t. They are still the old gods, who know only one pleasure, and that is playing with the fates of humans. They roll the dice, but it is we who suffer.” I looked him straight in the eyes. “You are nothing like them, Athos. You are not cruel.”

“Have you forgotten that woman?” he asked softly. “You blamed me for her death, and you were right.”

“I was not. It was them again, the gods.” I began to pace the room to calm my agitated blood. “This is just what I mean, Athos. They delight in such games, and as long as they are still alive, they will never stop.”

He smiled wanly. “What happened to free will, Aramis?”

“We _chose_ to murder that woman, because it was the only choice the gods left us with. We were nothing but their instruments, carrying out their will. _Her_ will. Your sister’s will.” I stopped before him and our gazes locked again. “That woman’s death wasn’t the end, was it?”

“No,” Athos said. “She had a son.”

I burst out laughing. “A blood feud! Superb!” I walked over to the sideboard and poured myself another glass of wine. “Is he alive? For as long as that boy is alive, we have a deadly enemy, you know that, don’t you? Striking like your father’s own thunderbolt to avenge his mother’s death – the Greek tragedy practically writes itself. This is precisely the modus operandi your family delight in.”

“You’re angry, Aramis.”

“You bet I’m angry. Aren’t you? Oh no, I forgot. You don’t get angry anymore, not since you’ve met the _Buddha_.”

He shrugged and looked almost embarrassed. “I don’t. I’m sorry, Aramis, I can’t explain it. I look into my heart and all I find is tranquillity.”

“I’m very happy for you.” My wine glass was empty again. I reached for the carafe with water and refilled it. Athos held out his glass. I refilled it too, and we both watched the water run from one receptacle to the other in a silver stream. I laughed. “Who would have thought you’d become such a dedicated amator aquae in your dotage.”

Athos laughed too, blushing to the tips of his ears. I took his glass out of his hand and took a deliberate sip, swirling the water in my mouth before I swallowed. “Delicious. I would know the taste of the Loire waters anywhere.” I handed the glass back to him. “What about you?”

“ _Aramis_!” Athos was laughing still, blushed and gorgeous, and I wanted to kiss him. I did not. I breathed in deeply and then I laughed again, with genuine joy. For as long as long as we had _this_ , this easy camaraderie that centuries worth of memories had neither spoiled nor rendered a burden, all was not lost.

***

“When is the last time you killed anything? Properly.” Aramis sounded almost bored as he brushed his fingertips over the dust on some of the more neglected volumes in the Bragelonne library. I decided I should do an inventory as I watched his movements.

“When Porthos was last here and we went hunting,” I replied. Unlike Aramis, Porthos was rather pleased to make Segundo’s acquaintance. “It was a hare. Hardly a worthy opponent.”

“Poor hare. What would Buddha say,” he mocked, his back still to me.

“Even demigods have to eat,” I shrugged from my arm chair.

“Even at the monastery in Noisy, there is a fencing master,” he announced, turning towards me sharply, apparently done with whatever rigorous examination he had been subjecting the bookshelves to. “You should get some exercise, Athos, lest you grow weak and flabby.”

I grinned at him. “I do not get weak or flabby.”

“So you say, old man!”

At the sound of that, I rose to his bait by rising from the arm chair. “Who’s going to challenge me - this bride of Christ?” I kept my tone light, just as he had, nevertheless, you could feel what I would nowadays call an electrical current run through the air as I spoke.

“Oh. _Oh._ Jumped up little godling is asking for a thrashing.”

“I have foils,” I said.

“What are you? A human?” he spat with unveiled disgust. Funny, he never used to speak of humans with such contempt before. “We shall use real swords.”

“You want to make me bleed, Aramis?”

“That wouldn’t be very sporting of me, would it?” He flashed me his teeth and I saw that his fangs were retracted, at least for the time being. Still, there was bloodlust in his eyes that went beyond easy camaraderie.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” I said quietly.

“Too late for that.” I blinked and he was no longer standing before me, so I could not be sure whether those words were really spoken by him, or merely a figment of my imagination. I looked out the window and over the balustrade of the balcony, to see him standing next to the flowerbeds below.

“Are you coming, old man?” he hollered up.

Aramis had been right in that it’s been some time since I’ve handled the blade. I wasn’t sure what kind of a Jesuit school he went to in Italy where they apparently catered to some of his decidedly un-Jesuslike talents, but I wasn’t going to bait him any further. He was in one of his moods. In the past, I had many methods at my disposal of dispelling the cloud that dragged along with it the darkness of his Slavic souls. Now it seemed I had to avail myself of other weapons. I was not sure I had sufficient arrows in my quiver.

I had brought two blades with me downstairs and invited him to walk out with me into the shade of the chestnuts. It had been a hot summer day and both of us were already in our shirtsleeves, seeing no reason to stick to formalities. I thought of my human servants (all of whom were still alive, even though Aramis had spent two nights under my roof) and wondered what they would make of all this. Then again, they had all been rather congenial with me, despite what they had to think were my peculiarities.

“I won’t aim for the face,” I told him jeeringly as I handed over one sword.

“I would find a way to kill you, if you did,” he shot back and then bit his lips. “I’m sorry. I did not mean…”

“It’s all right,” I quickly interrupted him. “Well, shall we begin then?”

“En guarde, my dear count.”

“At your service, my dear abbé.”

We began slowly, crossing our blades carefully, as if testing each other. Neither one of us made a move to initiate an attack, I only felt the weight of his sword against mine, the pressure of his hand, the way his fingers held the pummel. Lightly and expertly. He sneered at my tentative movement, in a flash, transforming both his countenance and his blade into a deadly serpentine creature, ready to strike. I parried three attacks in a row, he parried my counter attack, and he laughed.

“You’re either holding back or you’re rustier than I thought, old friend.”

I lunged; he parried. We could go on like this all day, I thought. Attack; counterattack. Regardless which quadrant he chose to attack me in, I parried. True to my word, I did not aim for his face. That beautiful face, beautiful even when contorted in deadly concentration. I used to enjoy watching him kill, I remembered. How many men had he killed since I saw him last? Too many to count, I presumed. A pang of guilt at unleashing this menace upon sentient beings pierced my wrist like a burst of lightning, and with a swift movement, I disarmed him, making his sword fly ten feet away.

“You _have_ been holding out,” he grit through his teeth, and I wondered if he meant more than just my fencing moves.

I walked over to where his blade had landed and used the top of my foot to flick the sword up and kick it over to him. He caught it with a flourish and transferred it to his left hand.

“Ah, Aramis, I keep forgetting how ambidextrous you are,” I smirked. In battle, I had often seen Aramis attack and kill his prey while wielding two swords at once.

“No more so than yourself. Although you seem cursed to resort to only your right hand, unless forced.”

We were definitely no longer speaking of fencing.

“I use my left hand for pleasuring myself,” I retorted and engaged his blade again.

“You could have been a very versatile hunter, Athos.”

He attacked me with renewed hostility and I remembered what his first words were to me when he arrived. He had mentioned the letter I had sent him. I had introduced him to Segundo, rather clumsily. Was this about Marie? Or was this about wounds that ran much deeper than the currents of the Loire?

Despite the shade, both our brows were covered with perspiration. I felt my shirt cling to my back as he advanced upon me, moving with the speed and ease of a shadow. He pressed me quite a bit, but I held my ground, my eyes following his eyes, which would tell me faster than his hand where he would strike next. Each one of his blows aimed at my heart, yet none of them told.

 _Suppose, I let him,_ I thought.

What would be the worst thing to happen? I would get stabbed, yes, but I would recover. I had recovered in the past. Everything changes. That pain too would come and go. But Aramis… Would that make him happy again? I wanted so much to see him happy.

I lowered my hand and my guard slipped. His sword immediately pierced right through my right arm and my blade fell to the ground.

“Fuck!” he exclaimed, his eyes flashing in ire. And something else. _Ah yes._ My blood. It rushed freely down my arm, dripping to the well-trodden earth beneath our feet. I heard his fangs drop and he turned away from me in horror, as if he couldn’t bear for me to see his face.

“Damn! I apologize,” I felt flustered as I spoke. I brought my left hand around the wound on my right arm, but all I accomplished was smearing the blood over my other hand.

“Do not apologize for letting me stab you,” Aramis mumbled, with his back still to me, his voice muffled by his hand over his lips. By his labored breath, I could tell he was struggling mightily with the demon inside him.

“Should I… I can just have this tended to at the château,” I muttered, feeling completely ridiculous. I should have thought this through. I should not have let him draw my blood like this, not when I had denied him the taste of it. Instead of it being a kindness, this had turned into a cruelty. This had been a horrible mistake.

“Oh, get a hold of yourself,” he snapped, suddenly standing in front of me, his eyes two bright cinders burning in his face. One of his hands came up to my shoulder and in a movement as swift as it was brutal, he tore off my sleeve. My heart lurched into my throat, for that movement alone recalled me of the day we first met, on that field of battle in Wallachia. He had sat astride me after he had wounded me, and he had torn off my bloody sleeve.

But this time he didn’t flee with it. He wrapped it around my wound like a makeshift bandage, and then he pulled it into a knot so tight that I winced in pain. His eyes flashed defiantly and then he wiped his bloody palms against the rest of my white chemise and took a step back.

“There. All better.”

Had he remembered it too? I looked at him and did not know what I was seeing. Two and a half centuries of memories in a single moment, perhaps. It didn’t hurt as much as being resurrected, but it did sting.

“Athos? You’re going to live.”

“What?”

“Your wound. It’s definitely not fatal.”

“Of course not.”

“Then why do you look like an idiot right now?” He was smiling at me again and I couldn’t help but smile back.

“I’m hungry,” I announced. “Are you hungry?”

“I could eat a village,” he deadpanned.

“Let’s start with a capon,” I suggested.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Loudun possession did happen. But Aramis had nothing to do with it, honest! Shame on you for thinking he did!


	3. Chapter 3

Three days. Three day, like Jesus in his grave before His resurrection, I had been lying low in the guest room at Bragelonne, enshrined in the stony sepulcher of the castle and enveloped by the heavy fragrance of gardens that stood in full bloom. I focused on their perfume that hung like a veil between myself and Athos. The scent of his blood had shot to my head like liquor and I had walked in a haze for the rest of the day. We had dinner. We talked. We said goodnight. He went to his bedchamber and I went to mine, locked the door and crawled into bed in my clothes, and I lay there with my eyes wide open.

The night air shimmered around me and the moon poured molten silver into the room. Peace hung above the castle of Bragelonne like a cloche. It kept away the old gods, for neither Ares nor his sister Eris had access to this Garden of Eden, these Elysian Fields that Athos had found in the most unlikely place, at the shore of the Loire. Was it the hand of Tyche that I sensed in all this? Why else should the paths of my lovers of many centuries have crossed? Was I still the plaything of the gods, who deemed it amusing to dangle their wilful son before my nose and yet withhold him from my grasp?

My body coiled and uncoiled as I twisted on the other side and dug my nails into the mattress. Outside the window, an owl’s hollow cry tore through the silence. I gritted my teeth and tasted blood where my fang had pierced my lip. Devil take those birds. At least the owl had the decency to lurk quietly in the dark and bring death on silent wings. That parrot on the other hand… How could Athos be so fond of those infernal creatures? I clenched my hands, conjuring up images of breaking bones and of blood dripping from between my fingers as I twisted the bird’s neck. It would break so easily. What would possess anyone to make that creature screech out _my_ name?

I was thrashing around like a fish on dry land, tossing and twisting in the sheets until the whole bed creaked beneath me and around me. The baldachin pressed down on me; it appeared to be coming closer and closer, like black soil that poured into my grave, into my throat and my eyes.

I came up with a gasp. Hypnos had crept up on me on silent feet and attempted to strangulate me. I freed myself from the sheets, pulled off my doublet, slunk across the room and climbed on the windowsill. I swung my legs over the edge and slid down into the garden. The fragrance of flowers was overwhelming here, and I delved into the dark archway beneath the canopy of tree crowns, meandering on the paths in the hope of cleansing my senses from Athos’ scent. The silver thread had returned, delicate yet strong, like a spider’s web, and I was the moth trapped in it. I had to find a way to spread my wings again before it was too late, before he would once again become my Stella Maris, the ignis fatuus that lured me into the bog.

I turned around and lifted my eyes to the window. Athos, clad in a white shirt and loose breeches, stood on the balcony. Behind him, the door stood ajar, the curtain billowed, and the flicker of candlelight became the beacon that guided my steps. The silver thread reeled me in, pulled me up the wall and over the balustrade, until I stood within a hair’s breadth from him. The beat of his blood and of mine filled the space between us. The wound in his arm had not quite healed yet, the new skin that grew over it was a delicate gauze, and the smell of his blood still clung to it.

Athos’ eyes shone like black diamonds. “Would you like to come in?”

I laughed. “Is that what you want?”

“Aramis,” he sighed. “You are beautiful.” He brushed his knuckles against the billowing sleeve of my shirt.

“Not as fuckable as Antinous though.”

“That’s just my servant’s opinion.” The corner of his mouth curled in the familiar heathen smirk and my groin tautened. “He is welcome to hump a statue of Antinous if he finds one.”

“You don’t keep one in your bedroom then?”

Athos’ smirk deepened. “Feel free to search it, if you wish.”

I glanced over his shoulder, into the warm light, and blinked. The choice was mine. I had come to him, and I was free to leave whenever I wanted. He would not hold me back.

“ _Aramis_.” So soft, it could have been just the whisper of the wind. In the shadows, the dryads picked up their night-time hymn, which rustled through the leaves and rose from the tree tops against the sky.

I pushed past him and stepped into the room. Behind me, a sigh, the sound of footsteps, curtains being drawn. Athos stood behind me and pressed his warm hand to the ant trail that tingled up and down my spine. His fingertips rested against the jut of my vertebra and heat radiated from that one spot all the way to my face and down to my loins.

“I never ceased to find you beautiful,” he said calmly. “You know that, don’t you?”

“I know.”

“Aramis,” he said my name again, it was like a perpetual prayer on his lips. “I remember what we-” He broke off and I was certain he had bit his lip. “What we did. What we were.”

“I’d be surprised if you didn’t.” I spoke fast, before my heart rose all the way to my throat and choked me. “It was memorable.”

“If you ever wish to do it again…” he sounded humble, a supplicant who didn’t know if his plea would be answered. His hand moved a fraction higher and his nails grazed over the nape of my neck. Shivers erupted under his touch and my entire body tautened. I felt the muscles in my thighs spasm, and my cock jolted painfully. I leaned into Athos’ touch and heard him exhale a shuddering breath.

That beautiful body, with its firm muscles and its skin of marble, it was within my reach once again. With its intoxicating scent, and with those hard planes and lean limbs, which I could map out blindfolded. I could feel the heat from his cock even though we weren’t yet touching anywhere below the waist. He moved his hand again, in a smooth, practised gesture, threading his fingers through my hair. His palm moulded itself to the back of my skull and I felt the beat of the pulse in his wrist against my skin and bones. My own treacherous blood rose and fell like the sea, robbing my vision, robbing my breath, and all my senses narrowed and focused to pinpoint the one spot that Athos touched. I had forgotten how sensual our union used to be, drowning the memories of his touch in carnal congress with women whose bodies were nothing like his. His touch tore down the bulwarks around my heart and mind and I felt myself melt into something softer, gentler than the man I had been since our separation. Athos had always had that effect on me, for it was under his influence that I had attempted to be a better man.

As long as I focused on thoughts of the past, I would not give in to temptation. One of us would crack any moment now, and I stood motionless, willing him to lose himself in me first.

Heat scorched me as the cloud of his breath alighted on my shoulder. He mouthed at the fabric of my shirt and brushed his lips higher towards my neck, where my blood thudded under my skin, desperate to mingle with his. He took my hand in his and pressed it, sliding his thumb over my knuckles. “What do you want?” The tip of his tongue flicked over my earlobe and I shuddered against him. “Tell me, Aramis.”

 _Not your blood._ Did he expect me to beg for it, like I had begged in Litochoro? I had learned my lesson then. I would not ask him for anything that he did not bestow upon me freely, and I would not give him anything more than he gave me. If his heart had healed without encasing me within, I would lock mine to him also. What use was my demonic nature if not for giving me the right to take what I wanted under the cover of night and slip away before the first cock-crow?

I let myself fall backward into the furnace of his embrace. Athos groaned into my neck and then his mouth was on my jaw, the corner of my mouth, and I twisted my neck and parted my lips for him. That beautiful, generous mouth on mine, the swipe of his tongue along the seam of my lips, our teeth clashing together when we moved both too hard and fast. I turned and pressed him harder, pushing him backwards, across the room and onto the bed. His hips slotted between my thighs and he ground his cock into my groin. I leaned over him and pressed my lips to the ridge of his cheekbone. “I’ve forgotten how _huge_ it is,” I muttered and licked across the side of his face.

Athos moaned and then laughed. “Ditto.” He held me around the hips, keeping me in place as he rutted against me with flat jerks of his pelvis. “Take off your clothes.”

“All of them?”

“If you wouldn’t mind.”

I rolled off him and for the next few minutes, we tumbled across the bed in a haphazard mess of arms, legs and hair, pulling each other’s clothes off and laughing into each other’s skin. The bed creaked like an ancient ship and the floorboards creaked beneath it. Athos wrapped a fistful of my hair around his hand and pulled me down, and I wrestled him onto the mattress and straddled him again, shoving my cock against his. He groaned and I hissed and our hands collided, both reaching down at the same time. “Stop, Aramis, stop!” he gasped, pushing and pulling at me all at once, almost clumsy in his attempt to do everything, have everything _now_. “We should slow down.”

“Why?” I hovered above him, one hand flattened over his heart to soak up its throb through my palm.

“To appreciate the moment,” he said, quite serious. “Let us relish this.”

I ducked my head and licked across his mouth. “Very well.” His tongue slid against mine and I curled an arm around his head, keeping him in place as I began to kiss him in earnest, deep and thorough, to let him feel the passion that seethed in my veins. His hips shifted beneath mine and we ground into each other, into the slick heat between our bodies, against tight muscles and unyielding bone. He pulled in one knee to cradle me between his spread thighs, and I wedged him open with my legs and rocked against him.

“So beautiful.” Athos had broken the kiss and was tracing the lines of my face with delicate fingertips. His lip trembled, as if he wanted to smile but thought better of it. I tossed back my hair that obscured our both faces like a veil and attempted to read the words that he didn’t speak in his half-lidded eyes.

His gaze locked with mine and his cock twitched against my own. I smirked and shoved my hips into him, hard, watching his face as he sucked in air with a hiss. “Slow enough for you?” I asked with my hand pressed to the side of his face, and pushed my thumb into his mouth. His lips closed around it and he sucked, teasing the tip with his tongue. I wanted to bite that mouth, to drill my teeth into its soft swell and break the tender skin there. Instead, I lowered my head and parted my lips over the tender flesh above his collarbone, and then I licked a path all the way to his armpit. He arched off the mattress, lifting me with him, and I groaned as I felt the strength coiled within the muscles and tendons of his body uncoil like a spring.

My mouth trailed down his arm, to the spot where his skin was thin and sore. The scar was faint already and would be gone by tomorrow. He had washed the blood off, but I could still smell its traces trapped in the pores and the fine hairs there. I pressed my nose to his flesh and _sniffed_ , and Athos groaned. In the crook of his elbow, his vein swelled, thick and blue under the white skin. I licked it with the flat of my tongue and Athos gasped and grabbed my hair.

“Don’t worry, mon cher,” I told him, shifting to kiss his mouth again. “I’m not going to bite you.” I ran my tongue over the row of my teeth, relishing in the sensation of it scraping over the sharp points of my fangs. “Don’t underestimate my self-control,” I whispered and kissed him.

“Never.” Athos held my face between both hands and, with a sudden thrust of his hips, unseated me and rolled us both over. “Unless I do this, of course.” I gasped and my head rolled back, as nimble fingers alighted on my nipple, circling and rubbing, and then his hot mouth: his teeth closed around my nipple and he tugged with just enough pressure to make my whole body convulse against him. I dug my fingers into his hair and Athos laughed, breathing hot puffs of air against my chest. “Still so responsive, little chyortik,” he murmured. “Will you spill yourself like this?” His tongue was hot against my flesh. “Or do you need something more?” A hand dragged down my flank and slithered between our bodies, down to my groin, nails scraping over the hairs there until his fingers reached my cock. He slid his flat palm down its length and cupped my balls, probing between my legs with his fingertips. I grabbed his arse and dug my fingers into the firm flesh, to make him arch his back, the way he used to when he spread himself for me to be fucked.

We were both panting into each other’s faces, staring wide-eyed into each other’s souls. His grip was slick and smooth, and my legs opened for him quite in spite of myself. Athos laughed breathlessly and moved his mouth back to my chest, to lick my other nipple. Sparks erupted behind my eyelids and heat tightened around my loins and abdomen, like a hoop around a barrel. My hand fumbled blindly for Athos and I held his head in place by his hair, rubbing myself into the slick heat of his mouth and body. “Your hand, Athos,” I panted. I felt him hesitate for the fraction of a heartbeat, but then he pulled his hand back up from between my legs, rather than pushing it further in, and those beautiful long fingers wrapped themselves around my cock. My hips jerked into him and his cock burned, huge and damp, against my stomach. I slipped my hand between our bodies and pushed his cock into his grip. “Both.” I moaned, because Athos had dragged his teeth across my chest for a renewed attack. “Fuck, Athos.” I wrapped my leg around his and pulled him in. “Do us both.”

Athos shuddered above me; his laboured breath settled like hot mist on my breastbone and his hand moved between our bodies as we fucked ourselves against each other and into the tight grip of his fist. “Gods, _Aramis_!” He sank his teeth into the muscle of my breast, so hard it hurt. My own teeth were clenched, I was panting through my nose, dizzy with the rush of bone-melting lust that thrummed along every fibre of my body. Harsh, erratic shoves of his hips that fucked me into the mattress, and he was spilling himself in a scorching hot gush. I cried out as my own climax rolled over me and blinding bliss dragged me down. We sank into each other, trembling with aftershocks. Only now did I realise that Athos had bitten dark bruises into my breast. I could feel my blood pool to the welts left by his teeth.

“Forgive me,” he said once his breathing evened out. He brushed his fingers over the marks on my chest, frowning.

I shrugged and stretched my limbs, relishing in the way they cooled where the soft breeze settled on my sweat-slick skin. “I’ve had worse.”

Athos smiled with a corner of his mouth, propping his head up on his hand. “Hm. Yes.” His other hand moved down my sternum, and round my flank, fingers dipping into the grooves between my ribs. “Your skin bears no traces of it,” he said. “It’s the same it was when I first met you. Flawless.”

“Unlike my soul.”

“Aramis-”

I shook my head and rolled out of the circle of his embrace. “You never really saw the stains on my soul, Athos. Probably because your own is so pure.” He smirked and I smiled back. “I assure you, they exist. And their _name is Legion, for they are many_.”

“My beautiful demon,” Athos whispered with a fleeting caress. He stretched out his arm above his head, resting on his side, facing me. “Will you stay?”

I smiled, rolled against him and kissed the warm skin of his neck. “Sleep.”

***

He did not stay, nor did I truly expect him to. When I awoke with the first rays of aurora, the sheets I lay upon had grown cold, but his scent still lingered on my pillow. I closed my eyes and asked my heart who its master was. Deep within myself: repose and refuge. I opened my eyes and felt calm.

It had felt right. For a few moments, I had allowed myself to be drunk on him again, the smell and taste of his flesh, the ferocity of his movements, the proximity to danger, the devil with the face of an angel. He had not given himself to me, not fully, but there was an underlying fairness to the narrative of his body. A sensual _quid pro quo_ that I could not fault him for, despite the prevalent urge to feel him impaled under me. What I had wanted, what I had found with him _before_ , that equality that I had craved, perhaps it was only now that I was beginning to get a true taste of it. Now that I was no longer giving him my blood and the keys to my heart. He had held my heart in the palms of his hands back then. One day, he flexed his fingers into a fist, and my heart burst.

But not today. The rumpled, cold sheets told me a different story, one of a pleasant night, well spent.

Attachment was what inclined us all to _dukkha_ , the Buddha’s name for suffering, and that way lay _samsara_ and the endless cycle of this helpless existence. I was nothing but a demigod whose immortality hung in the balance at the slightest provocation, a pawn for other gods to move along their chessboards, and Aramis was the bait they dangled before me. The bishop or a knight you might sacrifice so that your queen might take your opponent’s king. I understood the root of his anger, even if I did not share it. I could not, I _would_ not let them play us against each other again.

I dressed myself slowly, examining each of my thoughts and movements as I performed my morning ablutions. I combed my hair, I washed my face, I meditated, I opened my balcony to let the rays of sunlight in, I greeted and fed Segundo.

“I love Aramis!” he proclaimed.

“If you say so,” I smiled.

“Hera’s cunt!” he suggested next.

“You have a very dirty beak, Señor Segundo,” I chided him as I stroked his smug, little head.

“Damn flitterbat! Damn flitterbat!”

“Oh, I think our Monsieur Grimaud is asking for a thrashing,” I laughed and put my mouthy companion back into his large silver cage. I couldn’t simply leave him flying around with Aramis nearby. Then again, Aramis had gone, slipping from my bed and out of my life again, like a strange constant of inconstancy.

I walked downstairs where the smell of fresh bread emanated from the kitchens, and out to the garden to examine the flowerbeds for they, like Segundo, required constant attention. The flowers faced East and I followed their pointed heads further down the path where I came upon a marble bench and my heart knocked loudly against my chest the way Death might knock on the door.

_Let me in._

There, sprawled like a [Mars from a Botticelli](http://www.artble.com/imgs/f/2/9/517334/venus_and_mars.jpg) painting, only rather more attired, reclined Aramis, with a book in one hand and in the other a glass of lemonade that a surly and harried Grimaud, in the role of one of the satyrs, must have just served from behind the bench. My familiar stood gazing upon my friend with eyes that were simultaneously full of awe and fear that transferred over to me upon my arrival. It appeared that it was left up to me, then, to fulfill the role of Venus.

I approached the bench and let my shadow fall upon my demonic companion. “I was afraid you’d left,” I said. These words, so unrehearsed, struck me as particularly honest. Had I been afraid? Of what?

“I told you I would stay for a week,” he replied, calmly sipping from his glass and moving his legs over to make room for me. The scent of fresh squeezed lemons hung in the air around us.

He _had_ said that. And he had never lied to me before, my sly demon, at least not with his words. “So you did,” I replied, sitting down next to him, and stuck my hand out towards Grimaud, who immediately placed a glass in it and filled it with the refreshing beverage. “You may leave us, Grimaud.”

My Grigori, in parting, inquired with his eloquent gestures whether or not he would find my bed soaked in blood. 

“You realize I can understand everything you’re signing,” Aramis pointed out and my impertinent Olympian guardian bristled while I laughed. I had often suspected as much, but had never thought to enquire. Of course, my astute friend had always been far too clever and studious to let a language go unlearned, even an unspoken language such as Grimaud’s.

 _Laugh if you like. It will be hilarious when you die again, like a bitch,_ Grimaud signed, apparently beyond all manner of fear or self-preservation. The poor lad must have been losing his mind with worry. His Olympian revenge on Aramis had filled him with acute glee and I threatened to spoil his fun if I were to allow myself to feel again.

“Like a _bitch_?” Aramis’ immaculate eyebrows shot upwards. “Did he really just dare say that to you?”

“Aramis, are you armed?” I asked calmly, staring into Grimaud’s implacable face.

“Not in the classical sense, but I am happy to eat him for you, if you wish.”

“That is most kind of you. And if you can catch him, you may eat him,” I responded. And then we both dissolved into peals of laughter as Grimaud dropped the silver tray and took off with Anemoi speed down the pebbled path in the direction of the stables. “Well? You won’t avail yourself of the opportunity?” I asked, my hand brushing against his.

“I am too fond of you to deprive you of your faithful watchdog,” Aramis smiled. He had not moved his hand and it lay there, on the bench, next to mine. I let my thumb drag over the knuckle of his.

“Thank you.”

“For sparing your servant?”

“Not just.”

I closed my eyes and felt the sunshine on my face. _I am my own refuge and source of strength_ , I reminded myself.

“But this proffered chase does give me an idea,” Aramis’ voice sounded close to my ear and I opened my eyes again beholding two dark pools gazing at me from under his long eyelashes. “You said you and Porthos had gone hunting? Any good game in your forests this time of year?”

Our eyes locked, bright and creased with mirth.

“You mean besides the Grigori?”

***

I was glad to see that death had not robbed Athos of all his former dexterity when it came to taking lives. We had set off on foot towards a pretty little bit of wilderness that bordered one of the fields belonging to the Bragelonne estate. August was already morphing into September, and the harvested fields teemed with hares and pheasants. I had shot several with my arquebus, before I admitted that Athos had been right and it was too much bother. He had opted for the crossbow from the start and had not brought a firearm at all. I hollered for Bazin, who lurched behind us with Grimaud, and he toddled over, took the arquebus from me and handed me my crossbow. Grimaud, whose determined slouch was more pronounced than ever, wound his way across the field, picking up the carcasses we left in our wake. Bazin shouldered my arquebus and I lifted my crossbow, took aim and impaled a fat specimen with my arrow. I laughed as the hare leapt with one final spasm and dropped to the ground. Athos was watching me from the side, laughing also.

“It brings back memories, doesn’t it?” he murmured, following the motion of my hand with his gaze as I stroked along the handle. “It’s been a while since we last used crossbows in battle.”

“Missing your gastraphetes, are you, old man?” I smirked. “Firearms are so much more efficient.”

“I wouldn’t have thought you needed anything to improve your efficiency, little chyortik.” Athos looked at me, and for a moment, I saw a flash of that sad, ancient smile flicker across his features that I used to know in days of yore. My heart rapped against my ribcage and I blushed furiously. I bit my lip and turned away. Did he know? Did Athos know what I had done since we’d last parted?

Would he have welcomed me in his house (and his bed) if he knew?

He touched my arm lightly and pointed his bow at the trees ahead of us. “Let us go there,” he said. “I believe there is a fox den not far from here which we could tackle."

My eyebrows rose in astonishment. “A fox den? Is that not a task for your groundsman, Athos? What happened to you, has country life turned you into a peasant? Hunting hares on foot is eccentric enough, but I can see that we have neither the time nor the party for a chasse à courre. But hunting foxes in the undergrowth?”

He smirked, handed his crossbow to Grimaud and took my arm with the easy familiarity that we had never lost. “We will find shade there,” he said calmly, steering me over the stubble field and between the stooks. “I know that you don’t love the open sun.”

The dryads reached out their long arms and pulled us into their green embrace as we ducked under the overhanging branches. The wood muffled our steps and our voices; Bazin, Grimaud and the dogs faded into the background, and all of a sudden, I found myself alone with Athos. We had never been quite alone since I had come to Bragelonne, for his domestics were always around, shuffling, carrying, shouting and obeying commands. Grimaud had been watching us with Argus’ eyes and, no doubt, had examined Athos’ sheets for bloodstains like the guardian of a newly-wed virginal bride.

He wouldn’t have to worry in that respect. I had long learned to ignore the call of Athos’ blood, even before he had died and locked me out of his heart. Doing this with him without craving his blood was my baptism of fire. It formed me like fire forms iron, and I would emerge on the other side hardened, possessed of an edge that could never be blunted. I glanced at Athos from the side, admiring his noble profile against the backdrop of brown-green trees. I had kissed those lips last night, and they had parted under the pressure of my mouth to grant me a taste of ambrosia. He had let go of my arm once we’d entered the woods, but he was still close enough for me to feel the warmth of his body. Did he think of it, too?

Athos turned his head and smiled at me. _Oh_. Yes, he did. Those brilliant eyes of his gleamed with a fire that I knew well. I blushed, unable to quell the blood that bubbled within my veins. The pulse in his neck was racing. He, too, was thinking of the night ahead, when he would invite me to his bedchamber again.

“Where is that fox den of yours?” I asked, looking around pointedly.

Athos’ smile deepened. “I’ll show you.” He took a step towards me, and for a moment I expected him to push me against a tree, but he merely stared at me and then called over his shoulder: “Monsieur Grimaud!”

The Grigori appeared without a word, followed by my wheezing Bazin.

“My crossbow.” Athos stretched out his arm without looking at his Watcher. I beckoned Bazin to hand me mine. “Take the dogs,” Athos commanded the lackeys. “And go to the north-west. Monsieur Aramis and myself will make a semi-circle in the opposite direction and we’ll meet on the other side by the stream.”

Grimaud nodded, mute and subservient, and he and Bazin pushed their way through the undergrowth, whistling for the dogs. “You’ve trained him well,” I said to Athos once we were alone again.

“You know I have.”

Our eyes locked. All of a sudden, a memory resurfaced: Athos, clad in a doublet of Aegean blue, standing in the middle of a busy marketplace in Krakow, watching, _coveting_. My gaze dropped to his mouth. Any moment now, filth would be rolling off that slick tongue and spill over those finely-cut lips.

“How long will it take?”

I lifted my gaze to his again. “Depends on what you’re going to do.”

Athos was flushed and his eyes had gone very dark. “What do you want?” he said.

I took a step back and he followed me as if pulled by an invisible bond (the bond of blood, the bond of our old covenant). In the next moment, we were stumbling behind a bush, heedless of branches and thorns gripping our clothes and tugging on our hair. We dropped our crossbows. My hat fell off and my heel got stuck in the mossy ground, but Athos’ arm was around my waist and he was pushing me against a tree that grew amidst the thicket. He was panting into my face, into my mouth as our lips collided at last. I tugged off one glove and shoved my hand under Athos’ waistband, pushing against the unyielding fabric until my fingertips encountered the damp heat of his flesh. I brushed the tip of his cock and twisted my wrist, pushing in deeper, wrapping my hand around him to make him gasp into the kiss and thrust his hips into me.

“Aramis,” he moaned when I started to move my hand. “Let me-” His nimble fingers danced over the buttons of his own breeches, and then mine, and he laid us both bare. The sight of his prick as it pressed so intimately against mine and against the palm of Athos’ gloved hand, in broad daylight – it sent my head spinning, and my breath caught in my lungs. My hips jerked towards his and his cock slipped under the hem of my shirt. I felt it drag wetly across my stomach.

“How long, Athos?” I whispered, hitching up my shirt with one hand to watch his cock slide against my skin.

“We don’t have much time.”

I smirked. “You don’t really think Grimaud will search for us?” I arched my back and leaned against the tree, pushing my hips upwards and my prick into Athos’ grip.

“He wouldn’t disobey me like that.”

“He wouldn’t want to see this,” I pointed out and pushed my fingers into his mouth. His tongue curled around my digits, teasing them the way it once used to tease my cock. “Athos.” I pulled my fingers out again and trailed them across his lower lip. “Will you suck me?”

“Aramis-” he frowned and his gaze flickered, away from my face and down, as if he was uncertain.

“It’s all right.” I laughed suddenly, struck by the absurdity of the situation. My lover of many decades, whose mouth used to venerate every part of my body, no longer remembered the rush of ecstatic pleasure that accompanied even the filthiest of acts. I had sometimes envied Odysseus for having been the first man to whom Athos had given himself. I now understood that he had never given himself to anyone so fully as he had done to me. The realisation was as bittersweet as it was belated, but I would make the best of it. Then and now, his actions guided mine.

“You’re laughing, Aramis,” he admonished me, tightening his grip as if attempting to emphasise the serious nature of the situation.

“Out of habit.” I slid my cock harder into his hand. “Would you like me to suck you?”

He groaned and faltered against me. “Would you?” His mouth hot against my neck, lips moving over my skin in soundless prayer.

“Perhaps one day,” I muttered into his ear as I let myself fall, cushioned by the weight and pressure of his body, as he moved even closer, one leg between mine, steadying me even as he undid me at the same time. My thighs convulsed, heat erupted in my abdomen and flooded my groin. That fine kid-leather glove of his was ruined, I realised with some satisfaction. My own palm was slick with perspiration, and I gathered my own seed up and rubbed it into Athos’ cock, which twitched and swelled as my fist closed around it again. He was moaning into my neck, the side of my jaw, fucking himself against me in short bursts, and I let go of his cock.

Athos hissed and bit my earlobe. “If you want to punish me-” My hand stopped him, for I had shoved my fingers into his mouth again.

“Tastes good?”

Athos sucked and then let go and shoved my hand back down. With his other arm, he braced himself against the tree behind my back and, staring into my eyes, spent himself in my hand with three harsh thrusts and a deep groan. He staggered momentarily, and I caught him around the waist and pulled him towards me. I brought my hand up and licked his seed off my fingers: the taste of the ocean, the taste of life and of light. Not as potent as his blood, but filthier, it tingled on my tongue and numbed all my senses, until all that I smelled, saw and tasted was Athos. For one breathless moment, he filled out my world, and I hid my heated face against his shoulder. Athos was stroking my hair with a shaky hand.

“You’ve got leaves in your hair,” he said and I felt the sharp tug as he removed it. He lifted a tendril of my hair to his lips and kissed it.

“We should go.” I tilted my head back, against the rough tree bark, and looked up at sunlight streaming in through the canopy above our heads.

Athos kissed the corner of my mouth and began to button up. “I enjoyed this,” he said.

“Yeah.” I laughed shakily and turned my attention to my own garments. “It was good.”

Athos was ostentatiously rearranging his belts, but I saw that he looked up at me from beneath his brows. “Would you like to do that again?”

“I’m staying three more days.”

“Good.” He hesitated, bent down to pick up my glove and handed it to me. “You’ll always be welcome here, Aramis, you know that, don’t you?” He closed his hand around mine and pressed it.

“Of course. I wouldn’t expect anything less from you.”

“You will come to visit me then?”

I picked up my hat and placed it carefully on my dishevelled hair, while Athos watched my every move. “Thank you.” I took his hand and lifted it. Sunlight fell askance on his face and painted his eyes the colour of Armagnac, so beautiful in his flushed face. I held his hand to my chest to let him feel the beat of my heart. “I will. As often as I can.”


End file.
